Millions of Americans mess up their taxes, but a new law will help

Summary

There’s a comedian named Joe Zimmerman who has a bit on — of all things — the U.S. tax system.The video is below, but it goes like this:My biggest fear about the government is just: taxes. I worry about it all year long, because other countries, the government will tell you what you owe, and then you just have to pay it. Here, the government’s like, “OK, what do you think you owe us?”“I have no idea. Just tell me.”“Nope, you gotta add it up. And then give it up.”“Well, I’m really unorganized. What happens if I add it up wrong?”“You could go to jail.”Zimmerman is right that there are about 30 foreign countries that use “return-free” tax filing, in which the government assesses at least some citizens’ tax liabilities themselves based on information it already receives from employers. These countries send prepopulated tax returns to these citizens; the taxpayer can either say “Yep, looks good” and pay what the government says they owe or they can fill in missing information the government might not have had.Versions of this system are used in the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, among other countries. California also briefly had a return-free system for state taxes, championed by Sam Bankman-Fried’s law professor father. The idea of applying this nationwide in the U.S. has been endorsed by everyone from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, although the federal government really only has enough information to accurately prepopulate tax returns for around 45% of Americans. (Those other countries have much simpler tax codes than we do.) Of course, Zimmerman is exaggerating for comedic effect, but where he’s wrong is that it’s highly unlikely you would go to jail for adding things up wrong on your taxes.Not everyone is great at math, and there are so many numbers involved in tax returns that it’s very easy to make a mistake. You might be someone who is trying to pay all your taxes correctly, like Zimmer...